“The divine in man is our sole ground for believing that there is anything divine in the universe outside of man.”

—  Felix Adler

Section 1 : The Meaning of Life
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: The divine in man is our sole ground for believing that there is anything divine in the universe outside of man. Man is the revealer of the divine.
At bottom, the world is to be interpreted in terms of joy, but of a joy that includes all the pain, includes it and transforms it and transcends it.
The Light of the World is a light that is saturated with the darkness which it has overcome and transfigured.

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Felix Adler photo
Felix Adler 99
German American professor of political and social ethics, r… 1851–1933

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Felix Adler photo

“The divine in man is our sole ground for believing that there is anything divine in the universe outside of man. Man is the revealer of the divine.
At bottom, the world is to be interpreted in terms of joy, but of a joy that includes all the pain, includes it and transforms it and transcends it.
The Light of the World is a light that is saturated with the darkness which it has overcome and transfigured.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 1 : The Meaning of Life
Life and Destiny (1913)

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“The highest morality is one in which divinity is added to our humanity. This is the divine attributes of God expressed in the created virtues of man.”

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The Glorious Vision and the Way of the Cross, of Witness Lee - By Living Stream Ministry, ISBN 978-0-87083-479-0

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“The meeting of man and God must always mean a penetration and entry of the divine into the human and a self-immergence of man in the Divinity.”

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Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)

“Nature is a part of our humanity, and without some awareness and experience of that divine mystery man ceases to be man.”

Henry Beston book The Outermost House

Source: The Outermost House

Martin Buber photo

“The world is not divine sport, it is divine destiny. There is divine meaning in the life of the world, of man, of human persons, of you and of me.”

Martin Buber book I and Thou

I and Thou (1923)
Context: The world is not divine sport, it is divine destiny. There is divine meaning in the life of the world, of man, of human persons, of you and of me.
Creation happens to us, burns itself into us, recasts us in burning — we tremble and are faint, we submit. We take part in creation, meet the Creator, reach out to Him, helpers and companions. <!-- § 49

Joseph Campbell photo

“The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man.”

Joseph Campbell book The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Campbell follows with a quote from Ovid's Metamorposes, "All things are changing; nothing dies..."
Chapter 2
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
Context: The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man.... Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachment to the forms... the two are the terms of a single mythological theme... the down-going and the up-coming (kathados and anodos), which together constitute the totality of the revelation that is life, and which the individual must know and love if he is to be purged (katharsis=purgatorio) of the contagion of sin (disobedience to the divine will) and death (identification with the mortal form).

Joseph Addison photo

“To be perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.”

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No. 99.
The Guardian (1713)

Aldous Huxley photo

“At the core of the Perennial Philosophy we find four fundamental doctrines.
First: the phenomenal world of matter and of individualized consciousness — the world of things and animals and men and even gods — is the manifestation of a Divine Ground within which all partial realities have their being, and apart from which they would be non-existent.
Second: human beings are capable not merely of knowing about the Divine Ground by inference; they can also realize its existence by a direct intuition, superior to discursive reasoning. This immediate knowledge unites the knower with that which is known.
Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit.
Fourth: man’s life on earth has only one end and purpose: to identify himself with his eternal Self and so to come to unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

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“God forgives; forgives not capriciously, but with wise, definite, Divine prearrangement; forgives universally, on the ground of an atonement, and on the condition of repentance and faith.”

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Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 440.

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“The divine is God's concern; the human, man's.”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

Cambridge 1995, p. 7
The Ego and Its Own (1844)
Context: The divine is God's concern; the human, man's. My concern is neither the divine nor the human, not the true, good, just, free, etc., but solely what is mine, and it is not a general one, but is — unique, as I am unique. Nothing is more to me than myself!

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